Hundreds of kilometres away a man could go, hundreds of days he had to walk or sail, he knew how to survive all changeable traps, which were being set by the nature, if only he got this basic means for survival – water.
Karst is such a landscape, which the nature did not give enough liquid water – actually here is no surface water at all. Karstman was known inhabitant of this province, which has for centuries been valid as landscape without water.
Even though the landscape lies by the sea and has frequent rainfalls. But they come suddenly and the water pours into the landscape just after a few hours, disappearing through limestone. The surface is soon dry, as it is left to the winds, which was especially true for the past, when the landscape was not as overgrown as it is today. They say it was once, in ancient times all different, that Karst was completely overgrown with oaks, which took care that there was enough soil. Proximity of the sea contributed to the fact that the oaks became market merchandise.
This lack of surface water begun to reflect in the beginning of 19th century, when the provinces that had available surface water, progressed and evolved relatively quickly. Landscape as Karst backslid a lot. With the increased industrialization, it was clear that Karst will be bypassed.
Rail has been one of those harbingers of a new era, which almost in the middle of 19th century bypassed Karst. And precisely because the lack of water for both the construction and later for watering the locomotives. Southern railway, which connected Vienna with Trieste port, thanks to a wealthy landowner from Sežana – Polley, who persuaded the engineer Karl Ghego, ran through Sežana on so called “Karstic version”, although many opposed saying where would they get the water for workers and later for watering the steam locomotives.
However, the decision was made. The track was very demanding work, the problem with water was successfully solved with the construction of two reservoirs near Gornje Ležeče and later when railway traffic increased with construction of the railway to Pula, with damming of river Reka. From here the water flowed at 38 kilometres long pipeline, consisting of five iron pipes to the stations Divača, Sežana, Prosek and Nabrežina. In the vicinity of these places were built water reservoirs with 30.000 cubic feet of water. These collectors were called “imperial reservoirs”. In fact, this is a large water pool, around which was the walking surface with is completed with high wall forming the arch, that reservoir is closed from all sides.
From three sides the arch ends with flat upright wall, in which are iron gates that allows entrance into the reservoir. On the outside the building looks like a small hill on which is a small brick house, which had iron shutters, that water would get enough air and trash would not fall into the pool. That house is clearly visible in Divača, while it is no longer in Sežana. But you can see the wall and that small hill with iron gates.
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Sežana
Sežana is a city in Slovenia and economic, transport, educational, cultural and medical center of Slovenian Karst. City is the the seat of municipality Sežana, admnistrative units and parishes Sežana. Together with its hinterland Sežana has about 14.000 inhabitants. [_Read more_]